


Metacognition 101

by merely_indifferent



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: (troy suffers from comp het but it ends up okay), Episode: s02e01 Anthropology 101, Gen, M/M, and he asks annie where the cleanest bathroom is, takes place directly after that scene where troy is carrying a girl on his back
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 14:33:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28530003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merely_indifferent/pseuds/merely_indifferent
Summary: Troy thinks about Abed while he's kissing a girl, and all his rules for what he should and shouldn't think about fall apart.
Relationships: Troy Barnes/Abed Nadir
Comments: 12
Kudos: 137





	Metacognition 101

**Author's Note:**

> The scene I based this on is around 8:45 into Anthropology 101, but you don't really need to know what I'm talking about for this to make sense.

Troy tried to avoid thinking about a lot of things.

When he was in 7th grade, his science teacher told the class that one day, the outward pressure of the sun’s helium production would someday overpower the inward pressure of gravity, and the sun would explode, killing anything that may still be alive on Earth. That scared him, but there was no real reason to worry. He decided not to think about it.

He also avoided thinking about the spiders that seemed to perpetually invade his bathroom at Pierce’s mansion, and he tried really hard not to think about the fact that raspberries aren’t berries at all. Sometimes, when he realized he was thinking too much, he tried to stop thinking about thinking, because the idea of a brain thinking about itself was just too weird. For years, he even managed to not think about the pretty boy in his homeroom, or the way he would much rather be kissing the wide receiver of Riverside’s football team than his girlfriend. Most of the time, he was really good at not thinking about that.

And he was definitely not thinking about any of it as he pushed open the door of a bathroom and let Emma slide off his back and plant her feet on the floor. They had Physics together. She was pretty, blonde, and kind enough to whisper the answer in his ear when their professor asked a question he didn’t understand. So when she hopped on his back and asked if he wanted to dip out of the cafeteria for a minute, he didn’t think about refusing. 

Giggling, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him in for a kiss, the bathroom door swinging shut. Troy was a little out of breath from carrying her all the way from the cafeteria, so he breathed through his nose and let her tug him gently towards her. She backed up until she stood with her back to the wall, never letting go of Troy. She hummed quietly into his mouth and fiddled with the hem of his shirt. 

As he moved his mouth against hers, he started thinking about things. Just things - nothing that mattered. He thought about how pissed Jeff must be since Britta became popular for her confession at the Transfer Dance. He thought about the leaky faucet he could hear dripping into the sink behind him. He thought about what could have made Annie look so sad while she told him about the cleanest bathroom in the teacher’s lounge, which he ultimately abandoned in favor of a student bathroom nearby when he realized that carrying a girl through the teacher’s lounge wasn’t a good look. He wondered what Pierce’s chef would cook for dinner that night. 

When Emma just so slightly skimmed her fingers underneath his shirt, he started thinking about more dangerous things, things he usually tried not to think about. He hadn’t kissed a girl like this since his senior prom, when his date stood on her tip-toes (she hated wearing heels) to press a kiss to his lips in the middle of the dance floor. He had kissed her back, and wished her a good night when he dropped her off at her parents’ house. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that he felt more when he brushed fingers with the boy working at the coat check than during the entire night with her. 

But then Emma slipped two fingers through a belt loop on his jeans, and Troy found himself thinking about Abed. It was an accident. He usually didn’t let his thoughts get this far, but there was no turning back once the dam broke. He thought about Abed’s laugh - his real one, not the overexaggerated one he used in forced conversation. He thought about waking up in Abed’s top bunk while Abed was still asleep, and listening to him breathe, in and out. He thought about Abed’s hand in his, Abed’s always short nails, and his compulsive need to apply chapstick three times a day. Troy thought Abed must have the most well-kept lips on the planet. Beautiful, even. Troy wondered what it might be like to kiss those lips instead of Emma's.

_Shit._

Mid french kiss, he pulled back, putting about a foot of space in-between them and refusing to look Emma in the eye. He saw her brows pull together in his peripheral vision. 

“I can’t do this,” he said, voice wavering.

She tilted her head a little, not upset, just confused. “Why not?”

And then Troy started crying. He stumbled back, further away from Emma, as he raised a hand in a futile attempt to hide his face. Unwelcome tears spilled down his cheeks and he screwed his eyes shut, trying to stop thinking about Abed and his chapstick lips, his graphic t-shirts, his big brown eyes, but he couldn’t stop. Not this time. He messed up. He really messed up.

He began sobbing, and then he felt Emma's arm around his waist, but it felt much different than before. He heard her say “hey, hey, it’s okay, just - hey, let’s sit down, okay?” as her arm guided them both to the floor. Troy realized they were sitting on the floor of a community college bathroom - a Greendale bathroom no less - but he couldn’t bring himself to care. 

Troy dragged his legs into his chest and buried his face in the dip between his knees. Emma sat there next to him and didn’t try to touch or talk to him. She just waited quietly.

When the tears finally stopped, Troy lifted his head and rested his chin on his knees. He stared at the piping beneath the counter of sinks, tracing each pipe and noting each junction, analyzing how the water would flow from faucet to floor. It was a good distraction. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Emma said, speaking slowly. It wasn’t condescending, Troy could tell. She was giving Troy time to process her words and consider the best way to respond, and he appreciated that. 

Troy sniffed quietly and wiped a hand over his eyes. He took several deep breaths. He remembered something Britta once said when he cried during a group study session for a unit final, when none of the words on the page seemed to click in his brain. She told him four counts in, seven counts hold, eight counts out. He did that a few times, there on the floor of the bathroom, and it helped a little. 

“I think -” he started, but something snapped in his throat that cut him off. Four counts in, seven counts hold, eight counts out.

“I think,” he tried again, “that I might like...I think I like boys in the way I should like girls.” 

He had never said that aloud. He had never even said it in his head. Out of all the things he tried not to think about, he fought the hardest not to think that particular thought. And he just admitted it to someone he barely even knew. He waited for the rejection, the surprise, the disgusted scoff his dad made at the evening news when Connecticut legalized gay marriage on a sunny November day of his senior year. 

But Emma just said “Oh.” 

It wasn’t any of the terrible things Troy expected. Just acknowledgment. Acceptance. Just “oh.”

That “oh” triggered a waterfall of emotions from Troy he didn’t fully know he had. Troy started to ramble. “And there’s this guy, and he’s super awesome and he wants to make movies, and he’s my best friend, and it’s great, but he's got such nice eyes and sometimes I think I might like to be more than...” he trailed off, hands trembling. “More than just friends,” he finished lamely.

He braved a glance at Emma, who had a new crease on her forehead. She twirled a shoelace between her fingers.

“I’ve seen you two walking together. Abed, right? The chicken finger guy?”

Troy let out a tiny laugh. “Yeah.”

“He seems nice,” she said.

“He is.” Troy smiled a little at the floor, feeling stupid, but in a fluttery way.

“Well” Emma said, “I don’t know you or Abed well enough to be giving you advice, but I find that things tend to work out in the end, as long as you don’t let yourself get in the way.” 

Troy looked at her, thinking.

She waved a hand in the air. “It’s just something my mom said to me in high school. I had a bad habit of procrastinating projects ‘cause I was so afraid of messing them up.”

“No, that’s smart, actually,” Troy said. "The advice, I mean, not the procrastinating thing.”

Troy unfurled his legs and tapped his toes together a few times. He thought about the weeks he spent avoiding Abed at the beginning of freshman year, simply because Abed made him feel safe in a way he didn’t understand. He thought about how awesome it was when he finally got out of his own way and let himself be Abed’s friend, and how much he wished he could go back and start being his friend sooner. 

“You’re pretty cool, Emma," he said eventually.

“You’re pretty cool too, Troy."

"Sorry about, you know, not -"

"Hey, you don't have to apologize. You're totally fine."

Troy nodded. "Okay. Cool."

And it was.

They sat there together on the floor of the bathroom for a while, listening to the sounds of the building float around them. Being near the teacher’s lounge, the bathroom was far away from student-heavy hallways, so they didn’t have to worry about anyone walking in. Troy thought he could hear music playing from somewhere, and he thought Abed would like the way it sort of created a soundtrack. 

Emma piped up again. “I don’t know about you, but my next class is a drag and the room it’s in kinda smells like feet. You wanna dip out of whatever you have next and go get some food instead?”

Troy considered. He had Business Economics next. Definitely worth skipping for food.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’d like that.”

Emma clapped her hands together and picked herself off the floor, reaching a hand down and hoisting Troy up to his feet. When they both finished dusting themselves off, she said, “And if you’re up for it, maybe you can tell me more about this best friend of yours.” It was a genuine invitation, with no teasing or joking behind it. Troy thought Emma might be the nicest girl he’s ever kissed.

Despite all her kindness, Troy still felt a jolt of fear slice through his chest when he thought about discussing Abed in _that_ way, _out loud_. It was everything he tried not to do for almost a year. It would break every single one of his rules for what he should and shouldn’t think about. 

Then he wondered how good it would feel to just let all that go. To give in, to stop fighting. _Don’t let yourself get in the way, Troy._

“Maybe I will,” Troy said, and Emma smiled. 

Then he and Emma bought pizza, and the whole time, he never once thought about what to think about. A brain shouldn’t have that much self-awareness anyways. 

**Author's Note:**

> it's _my_ comfort character and _I_ get to write the victory over comp het that we both deserve!


End file.
